PRIMAEVAL TRADE ROUTES.
There can be little doubt that from the extreme West of Europe to
Northern India, or rather to China and the Pacific shore, there was
complete intercourse in the way of trade, from the most remote epochs.
In the lake dwellings of Switzerland are found implements of Jade, a
stone which is not found at any spot in Europe; in fact the nearest point
from which the material was fetched must have been Eastern Turkestan
on the borders of China[151]. If in neolithic days such communication
existed between Further Asia and Western Europe, it is not unreasonable
to suppose that when gold, an article existing in almost every country
across the two continents, came into use, a like facility of intercourse
must have existed. In one of the passages of Herodotus which I have given
above we had explicit information respecting a trade route extending from
the Greek factories on the northern shores of the Black Sea through the
medium of the Scythians right away to the remote region of the Altai.
On the other hand there is good evidence for the existence of a great
trade route from the Black Sea westward up the valley of the Danube,
and so reaching the head of the Adriatic; and again, there is equally
good reason for believing that from the mouth of the Po there ran a
similar route across Northern Italy through Liguria and Narbonese Gaul
and into Spain. In reference to the first of these routes we may quote
a tradition preserved in the Book of Wonderful Stories before alluded
to. It is there stated that once on a time travellers who had voyaged
up the Danube finally by a branch of that river which flowed into the
Adriatic made their way into that Sea. It is there alleged[152] that
“there is a mountain called Delphium between Mentorice and Istriana,
which has a lofty peak. Whenever the Mentores who dwell on the Adriatic
mount this crest, they see, as it appears, the ships which are sailing
into the Pontus (Black Sea). And there is likewise a certain spot in the
intervening region in which, when a common mart is held, Lesbian, Chian
and Thasian wares are set out for sale by the merchants who come up from
the Black Sea, and Corcyraean wine jars by those who come up from the
Adriatic. They say likewise that the Ister, taking its rise in what are
called the Hercynian forests, divides in twain, and disembogues by one
branch into the Black Sea, and by the other into the Adriatic. And we
have seen a proof of this not only in modern times, but likewise still
more so in antiquity, as to how the regions there are easy of navigation
(reading εὔπλωτα). For the story goes that Jason sailed in by the
Cyanean Rocks, but sailed out from the Black Sea by the Ister.”
The story of the meeting between the traders from the Black Sea and
Adriatic has every mark of probability, whilst we are possibly justified
in regarding the legend of Jason as evidence that for long ages the
Greeks knew that up the valley of the Danube traders from the Pontus made
their way. Doubtless too it was with a view to tapping the trade of this
very route that the trading factories like Istropolis were founded on the
Danube.
The branch of the Danube flowing into the Adriatic can only mean that
travellers from the Danube by passing up one of its tributaries would
reach a point from which it was but a short journey to the Adriatic
shore. But a famous story in Herodotus will yield us more efficient
aid. To the Greeks of the fifth century B.C. the extreme north was
represented by the land of those happy beings the Hyperboreans, just
as the furthest south was represented by the sources of the Nile. Thus
Pindar sings: “Countless broad paths of glorious exploits have been cut
out one after another beyond Nile’s fountains and through the land of the
Hyperboreans[153].”
Some of the oldest legends of the young world’s prime cluster around
this shadowy region. Herakles had wandered there in quest of the hind of
the golden horns, consecrated to Artemis Orthosia by Taygeta[154]; “In
quest of her he likewise beheld that land behind the chilling north wind;
there he stood and marvelled at the trees.” The judge at the Olympic
festival placed round the locks of the victor “the dark green adornment
of the olive, which in days of yore Amphitryon’s son had brought from
the shady sources of the Ister, a most glorious memorial of the contests
at Olympia, when he had won over by word the Hyperborean folk that are
the henchmen of Apollo[155].” The hero Perseus too had reached that land
where no ordinary mortal could find his way. “Neither in ships nor yet
on foot wouldst thou find out the marvellous ways to the assembly of
the Hyperboreans, but once on a time did the chieftain Perseus enter
their houses and feast, having come upon them as they were sacrificing
glorious hecatombs of asses to the god. Now Apollo takes continuous and
especial delight in their banquets and hymns of praise, and he laughs as
he beholds the rampant lewdness of the beasts[156].”
Herodotus felt puzzled where to place the Hyperboreans; “For concerning
Hyperborean men neither the Scythians say anything to the point nor any
other of those that dwell in this region, save the Issedones. But as I
think, not even do they say anything to the point; for in that case the
Scythians too would have told it, as they tell about the one-eyed people”
(the Arimaspians[157]). “But a certain Aristeas, the son of Caÿstrobius,
a man of Proconnesus, alleged in a poem that under the influence of
divine afflatus he had reached the Issedones, and that beyond them dwelt
the Arimaspians who have but one eye, and that beyond these are the
gold-guarding griffins, and beyond these the Hyperboreans, stretching to
the sea[158].” But where Pindar and Herodotus hesitated, the priest of
Apollo at Delos stepped in with an explicit statement of that “marvellous
road” which Pindar said no one could find by sea or land. Accordingly
Herodotus has to resort to the men of Delos for his information about
the Hyperboreans: “Much the longest account of them is given by men of
Delos, who have alleged that sacred objects bound up in wheaten straw are
brought from the Hyperboreans to the Scythians, and that the Scythians
receive them and pass them on to their neighbours upon the west, who
continue to pass them on until at last they reach the Adriatic, and
from thence they are sent on southwards. First of the Greeks do the men
of Dodona receive them, and from them they travel down to the Melian
Gulf and cross over to Euboea, and city sends them on to city as far as
Carystus. The Carystians take them over to Tenos without stopping at
Andros; and the Tenians convey them to Delos.” Then he adds a further
story that on the first occasion the Hyperboreans sent two maidens,
Hyperoché and Laodicé, with five male protectors, but as they died at
Delos, and returned home no more, they for this reason “bring to their
borders the sacred objects packed up in wheaten straw and lay a solemn
injunction on their neighbours, bidding them send them forward to another
nation, and the men say that being forwarded in this fashion they arrive
at Delos[159].”
From the various passages quoted we may draw the probable conclusion that
there was a well-defined trade route existing for untold ages between the
heart of Asia, the valley of the Danube and the head of the Adriatic.
The nameless poets who framed the legends of Herakles and his wanderings
would certainly make the hero travel by the routes where both in their
own time and from tradition they knew of the existence of highways from
nation to nation. Thus in his journey to the Hyperboreans Herakles is
represented as having visited the shady forests of the Danube, which
points to the same road as that assigned to the Hyperborean maidens by
the Delian tale. Finally it may not be farfetched to conjecture that
the sacrifice of hecatombs of asses may be taken as evidence that the
Hyperborean legend points to a people of Central Asia, which is the
natural habitat of the wild ass. However, as it seems that there was an
annual sacrifice of asses to Apollo at Delphi[160], we must be careful
not to lay much stress on this argument, although it is quite possible
that a vague knowledge of a far-off region where asses abounded and were
sacrificed may have given the Greeks the idea that the Hyperboreans were
worshippers of their own god Apollo, at whose altar like offerings were
made.
Having seen some reasons for believing that before the beginning of
history there was a well-defined route from Central and perhaps Further
Asia across Southern Russia to the valley of the Danube, and then by
one of the valleys of its tributaries to within a short distance of the
Adriatic, whence after crossing the watershed it reached the head of
that sea, we are now in a position to enquire whether we have similar
evidence for the further continuance towards the west of this highroad of
nations. We have had occasion already to remark that the legends of the
Voyage of the Argo in quest of the Golden Fleece, and the journeyings of
Herakles and such-like stories, really represent the earliest knowledge
of the regions which lay far away to the east and north-west. There is
no tale of the hero Herakles more famous than that of his travelling
to the very marge of Ocean, where in the Pillars of Hercules he left
an imperishable record of his wayfaring for the men of aftertime. His
object, so goes the story, was the capture of the famous kine of the
giant Geryon who dwelt in the island of Erythia, in after years the site
of Gaddir, or Gadeira as the Greeks called it, the Gades of the Romans,
and the modern Cadiz. Many vague stories relating to the early ethnology
of Western Europe and Northern Africa cycle round this expedition[161].
But for our present purpose it is only the fabled route by which he went
with which we are concerned. As might naturally be expected that part
of Italy with which the Greeks seem first to have become acquainted
was the district lying in the Adriatic around the mouths of the Po
(Eridanus). The reason why they came thither is not far to seek. They
doubtless simply followed the example of the Phoenicians who probably
had long traded thither to obtain both the highly prized golden amber
from the Baltic, and the red amber of Liguria, called from that region
Lingurium, or _ligurion_, a name for which the Greeks found a strange
etymology which connected it with the lynx[162]. According to Herodotus,
“the Phocaeans were the first of the Greeks who made long voyages and
discovered Adria, Tyrsenia (Etruria), Iberia and Tartessus” (I. 163).
The trade routes to the amber coasts of the north have long been well
known; they passed over the Alps, crossed the Danube at Passau, Linz
or Presburg, and proceeded then either to Samland or to the vicinity
of Jutland[163]. As these northern routes crossed that which came up
the valley of the Danube, we see that by this route there was complete
communication between the Black Sea and the Adriatic. In later times
we know that active trade was carried on with all Northern Italy from
Marseilles along by the Ligurian shore, for the coinage of Massalia,
and the barbarous imitations of it struck by the peoples of what was
afterwards known as Cisalpine Gaul, formed the currency of that region
until the Roman Conquest. But once more the Book of Wonderful Stories
comes to our aid: “They say that from Italy into Keltiké, and the land
of the Keltoligyes and Iberians, there is a certain road called that
of Herakles, by which if any journey, whether Greek or native, he is
protected by those who dwell along it, that he may suffer no wrong. For
those in whose vicinity the wrong is done have to pay the penalty.” Here
we have a clear instance of a well-defined caravan route, connected by
Greek tradition with the name of Herakles, which was placed under a kind
of taboo, so that all travellers could use it with impunity. We may then
conclude that as from Central Asia there was unbroken communication
with Northern Italy, so likewise from Northern Italy there was from
remote ages a definite trade route into Gaul and Spain, and that these
routes were in turns connected with the great routes which lead from the
Mediterranean to the Baltic and North Sea.
[Illustration: FIG. 15. Barbarous imitation of Drachm of Massalia.]